Quintinshill rail disaster

The First Minister attended memorial services in Gretna and Leith to honour those who died in the Quintinshill Disaster, which remains Britain’s most devastating rail crash in history.

At 6.49am on Saturday 22 May 1915, a Liverpool bound troop train carrying Scottish soldiers en route to Gallipoli collided head on with a local passenger train at Quintinshill just North of Gretna.

A minute later, a Glasgow bound express ploughed into the wreckage. In the fire that followed, 216 of the soldiers from the 1st/7th (Leith) Battalion, The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment) and 12 others died.

The Princess Royal laid a wreath in Gretna in memory of those who died in the disaster 100 years ago and was joined at the rail siding by the First Minister for a memorial service. Ms Sturgeon also met descendants of survivors and family members of some of the people who were first on the scene on that fateful day.